79 réponses à ce sujet

[roselavellan]

To be honest, I've never really understood why level scaling is so controversial. I've always liked it, it lets me maintain interest during higher levels. I understand that certain common creatures probably shouldn't be scaled to your level, but otherwise I do enjoy a certain level of challenge during battles.

 

Without level-scaling, I think there should be a mechanism to change difficulty level mid-game. (Welp, ignore that, just saw this in the options).

 

(And the complete lack of experience points when you're over-levelled is frustrating and baffling - after all, we're still spending time killing these enemies, aren't we? Shouldn't we get rewarded, at least a little, for it?)

[Monster20862]

How does it not make sense exactly?

While I would personally appreciate slower leveling overall because I have a tendency to do a lot of sidequests, other people don't. For them, slower leveling would force them to grind for levels instead of just speeding along the critical path. But if you tie leveling to the difficulty setting, people who just want to go the critical path can do so and people who want a decent challenge at every level can do so.

Or get rid of level caps of any kind and allow your player to level up at a decent pace indefinitely. The reason it doesn't make sense and the reason it is unfair is because not everyone wants to play hard or nightmare, and not everyone can, and making it so those people have an advantage because they're good enough to play it at that difficulty goes against the ultimate law of role playing games. Role playing games are first and foremost about the story. The combat difficulty is a very distant second, and if that is a big concern to you, then perhaps role playing games aren't your thing.

[AlexMBrennan]

BioWare supports my belief by not telling what is level of each zone.

Well, there are very subtle hints to be found in the game - for example, Storm Coast is unlocked right away whereas you have to advance quite a bit in the main quest before you unlock the Hissing Wastes so it would be reasonable to deduce that Bioware expects you to do Storm Coast before the Hissing Wastes. 

 

 

 

While it allows more challenge, it takes away the sense of progression

If you do it wrong, sure - if a mudcrab remains a constant threat regardless of your level (to the point where a mudcrab you encounter at lvl 50 is tougher than the dragon you fought at lvl 10) then it absolutely does suck. A more sensible form of level scaling would replace common enemies with tougher variants as you level up (think about it - if you deal with a bandit camp right away they will likely be fairly weak whereas you'd have to deal with a much larger and better equipped force if you go delivering flowers for a few years before confronting them). Sense of progression would remain intact because you have to beat a massive well equipped enemy force that you couldn't have taken on earlier. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

How does it not make sense exactly?

Bandits should always be bandit level. Dragons should always be dragon level. Elite guards should fight like elite guards regardless of how strong I am. Mooks should fight like mooks regardless of how strong I am.

If I fight elite guards when I'm weak, they should be stronger than me. If I gain power, that fight should get easier.

I don't want the combat to challenge me. I want the combat to fit into the game world. Normal difficulty never does, because the combat is so easy that I wonder why anyone views this stuff as a threat.

While I would personally appreciate slower leveling overall because I have a tendency to do a lot of sidequests, other people don't. For them, slower leveling would force them to grind for levels instead of just speeding along the critical path.

Increase the Power requirements at the same time, and suddenly those sidequests become part of the critical path (just like the beginning of BG2, or Act I of DA2).

But if you tie leveling to the difficulty setting, people who just want to go the critical path can do so and people who want a decent challenge at every level can do so.

And people who want to play the way I want to play are just left out? No thanks.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Well, there are very subtle hints to be found in the game - for example, Storm Coast is unlocked right away whereas you have to advance quite a bit in the main quest before you unlock the Hissing Wastes so it would be reasonable to deduce that Bioware expects you to do Storm Coast before the Hissing Wastes.

That's metagaming. A roleplayer does not metagame.

If you do it wrong, sure - if a mudcrab remains a constant threat regardless of your level (to the point where a mudcrab you encounter at lvl 50 is tougher than the dragon you fought at lvl 10) then it absolutely does suck. A more sensible form of level scaling would replace common enemies with tougher variants as you level up (think about it - if you deal with a bandit camp right away they will likely be fairly weak whereas you'd have to deal with a much larger and better equipped force if you go delivering flowers for a few years before confronting them). Sense of progression would remain intact because you have to beat a massive well equipped enemy force that you couldn't have taken on earlier.

Where did all the mudcrabs go? Where were the high level bandits early in the game?

[DomeWing333]

Bandits should always be bandit level. Dragons should always be dragon level. Elite guards should fight like elite guards regardless of how strong I am. Mooks should fight like mooks regardless of how strong I am.

If I fight elite guards when I'm weak, they should be stronger than me. If I gain power, that fight should get easier.

I don't want the combat to challenge me. I want the combat to fit into the game world. Normal difficulty never does, because the combat is so easy that I wonder why anyone views this stuff as a threat.

But there's no such thing as "bandit level," "dragon level" or "elite guard level" in Inquisition. There are already huge variation in how strong mooks are depending on the area they're in.

 

The key word in my post was "at least." I'm not saying that enemies should always be at your level on Hard or Nightmare. I definitely do want to be able to challenge enemies who are higher level than me, and then grind up to their level if the fight is too difficult. But if I'm playing a game on "Hard," I should have a hard time. I shouldn't be able to steamroll a dragon because I accidentally overleveled it by doing all the sidequests.

 

Having every enemy be at exactly the same power at every point in the game when the player character's own abilities are constantly evolving doesn't fit the game world either. In fact, the entire concept of a seasoned warrior "leveling up" after killing another bandit is illogical. There are certain gameplay mechanics you just have to segregate from the story.

Increase the Power requirements at the same time, and suddenly those sidequests become part of the critical path (just like the beginning of BG2, or Act I of DA2).

 Mandatory sidequests are never a good idea.

 

 

Or get rid of level caps of any kind and allow your player to level up at a decent pace indefinitely. The reason it doesn't make sense and the reason it is unfair is because not everyone wants to play hard or nightmare, and not everyone can, and making it so those people have an advantage because they're good enough to play it at that difficulty goes against the ultimate law of role playing games. Role playing games are first and foremost about the story. The combat difficulty is a very distant second, and if that is a big concern to you, then perhaps role playing games aren't your thing.

How does the ability to "level up at a decent pace indefinitely" contribute to story any more than combat difficulty? If enjoying combat difficulty makes RPGs not my thing, what does that say about your desire to constantly gain EXP when you're already 5 levels above the final boss?
 
I thought the problem we're trying to seek a solution to here was overleveling...

[Sylvius the Mad]

But there's no such thing as "bandit level," "dragon level" or "elite guard level" in Inquisition. There are already huge variation in how strong mooks are depending on the area they're in.

Some areas might not have mooks. There's no reason why wolves in one region can't be more powerful than wolves in another region.

But if I'm playing a game on "Hard," I should have a hard time. I shouldn't be able to steamroll a dragon because I accidentally overleveled it by doing all the sidequests.

Can I intentionally overlevel a dragon? Because I like doing that. But I want to have to overlevel it - I want it not to be easy until I do.

I intentionally seek out higher level content because I enjoy overleveling, and fighting tougher opponents gets me there faster.

Not everyone chooses difficulty settings based on how muxh difficulty he wants. Though, it occurs to me that we could both have what we want if they disaggregated all the difficulty settings (like they did with friendly fire).

There are certain gameplay mechanics you just have to segregate from the story.

Never.

[Lilacs]

Bandits should always be bandit level. Dragons should always be dragon level. Elite guards should fight like elite guards regardless of how strong I am. Mooks should fight like mooks regardless of how strong I am.

If I fight elite guards when I'm weak, they should be stronger than me. If I gain power, that fight should get easier.

I don't want the combat to challenge me. I want the combat to fit into the game world. Normal difficulty never does, because the combat is so easy that I wonder why anyone views this stuff as a threat.
Increase the Power requirements at the same time, and suddenly those sidequests become part of the critical path (just like the beginning of BG2, or Act I of DA2).
And people who want to play the way I want to play are just left out? No thanks.

 

Agreed with you 100 %  Sylvius.  The way you described here allows proper role-playing. When I got to the Hinterlands on my level one warrior, I explored it.  During my exploration, I accidentally ran into a Rift and the demons that came out of that Rift, killed my mage with one hit (me as a warrior in two hits).  Although, I dislike dying in games (that's one reason I enjoy the Tac Cam ,for I can use it to play strategically), I was excited for this. I vowed to return to exterminate those pesky demons.  And I did later and it was an equal challenge.

 

What I hope Bioware to include in future DLCs and Expansions, and even with the next Dragon Age, is to  provide us with the same challenge we encounter in the Hinterlands. Having a mix or varying levels of monsters in a zone keeps the game from being less challenging; It provides a proper challenge.

[DomeWing333]

Can I intentionally overlevel a dragon? Because I like doing that. But I want to have to overlevel it - I want it not to be easy until I do.

I'm a bit curious as to why it matters to you that your level exceeds the dragon's. Wouldn't it work just as well, if not better lore-wise, to have to over-equip yourself for a dragon?

 

I think making it so enemy levels are always at least on par with player levels but letting us adjust our relative strength to them with better or worse equipment is a more elegant solution. Because right now, as a person who doesn't like to overlevel things, the only thing I can do to maintain the game difficulty is to either not play a large portion of the game or intentionally use very weak equipment.

 

There are certain gameplay mechanics you just have to segregate from the story.

Never.

Then how do you deal with things like Iron Bull, a famed mercenary captain, coming into your party at a fraction of his potential strength? Or Varric, who's been adventuring with Hawke for years, having almost no archery techniques until he trains up a bit more? Or, as in your example, a character going from having absolutely no chance of being able to kill a dragon to doing so handily after slaying a few dozen more bandits?
 
If you really think about them, things like these are far less story-friendly than scaling enemies. In fact, doesn't it actually make more story sense for enemies to gain experience as your character does?

[DomeWing333]

Agreed with you 100 %  Sylvius.  The way you described here allows proper role-playing. When I got to the Hinterlands on my level one warrior, I explored it.  During my exploration, I accidentally ran into a Rift and the demons that came out of that Rift, killed my mage with one hit (me as a warrior in two hits).  Although, I dislike dying in games (that's one reason I enjoy the Tac Cam ,for I can use it to play strategically), I was excited for this. I vowed to return to exterminate those pesky demons.  And I did later and it was an equal challenge.
 
What I hope Bioware to include in future DLCs and Explansions, and even with the next Dragon Age, is to  provide us with the same challenge we encountered in the Hinterlands. Having a mix or varying levels of monsters in a zone keeps the game from being less challenging; It provides a proper challenge.

Right, but the only way to maintain that kind of proper challenge in a game where they let you explore the zones in any order want is to adjust the level of the monsters in the zone depending on the level of your character. i.e level scaling.

[Lilacs]

Right, but the only way to maintain that kind of proper challenge in a game where they let you explore the zones in any order want is to adjust the level of the monsters in the zone depending on the level of your character. i.e level scaling.

 

Well, not exactly. It is having variety. Level scaling is much more appropriate in MMO's to deal with end game,  but even in some MMO's there is no level scaling. Each zone is level specific.  So, if you out-leveled a low area, you move to the next one, but if you return to that area, your enemies are still the same level.

 

What's occurring in the Dragon Age series (especially Dragon Age: Inquisition) is having the ability to go anywhere, at any level, but be prepared to die often when you leave the starting area. The only exception is the Hinterlands, where you find a varying mix of monsters with different levels.  That is not level scaling but providing a variety that would give player a challenge. If a player cannot defeat an enemy in DA: I, a player can craft gear that would allow such player to gear up for the challenge, but the only downfall for this, a player must be out of the starting area.

 

The way DA: I is at the moment truly allows role-play.  A player can go anywhere on the map, once that zone has been opened. By doing so, a low level player will encounter enemies that are higher level than his/her character. The player character can engage just for the fun of it (role-playing), or simply avoid that encounter altogether and return when the player character is at the appropriate level to defeat that encounter.  I enjoy that type of freedom.

Modifié par Lilacs, 30 mars 2015 - 08:40 .

[DomeWing333]

What's occurring in the Dragon Age series is to be able to go anywhere, at any level, but be prepared to die often when you leave the starting area. The only exception is the Hinterlands, where you find a varying mix of monsters with different levels. 

What do you define as the starting area of the Hinterlands? I recall having to wander quite a bit from the first camp before I start encountering anything above level 4. 

 

But, anyway, let's say we make it so that there is a mix of monsters with different levels in each zone. How large would the level range be and do you also propose that we make all the zones have the same level range?

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'm a bit curious as to why it matters to you that your level exceeds the dragon's. Wouldn't it work just as well, if not better lore-wise, to have to over-equip yourself for a dragon?

There's nothing in the lore that excludes levels.

I think making it so enemy levels are always at least on par with player levels but letting us adjust our relative strength to them with better or worse equipment is a more elegant solution. Because right now, as a person who doesn't like to overlevel things, the only thing I can do to maintain the game difficulty is to either not play a large portion of the game or intentionally use very weak equipment.

If level scaling is a solution, then I think a better solution is to give everything a static level, including the PC. Then, yes, gear (and character creation) would make all the difference.

Then how do you deal with things like Iron Bull, a famed mercenary captain, coming into your party at a fraction of his potential strength? Or Varric, who's been adventuring with Hawke for years, having almost no archery techniques until he trains up a bit more?

Bull isn't a problem, because there's no requirement that a leader be high level.

Varric is more of a problem, but that's an argument against having returning characters (I made the same argument when ME2 came out). Or to have shallower power curves in each game (like BG).

Or, as in your example, a character going from having absolutely no chance of being able to kill a dragon to doing so handily after slaying a few dozen more bandits?

Which is why I would like slower levelling.

I'm not claiming that DAI is the perfect game. I just think your fixes push it in the wrong direction.

If you really think about them, things like these are far less story-friendly than scaling enemies. In fact, doesn't it actually make more story sense for enemies to gain experience as your character does?

Things either make sense or they don't. Accepting some nonsensical mechanics doesn't make others any better. We should strive to eliminate all of them.

I argue against this one because it has broad support, and I think it's important to dissent in the face of homogeneity.

[DomeWing333]

There's nothing in the lore that excludes levels.

But what would a level equate to in terms of lore/story? The difference in power and ability between a level 1 and a level 20 character is absolutely absurd considering it seems to only equate to about a year of combat experience.

If level scaling is a solution, then I think a better solution is to give everything a static level, including the PC. Then, yes, gear (and character creation) would make all the difference.

Well, you need some kind of progression mechanism. Otherwise, how will you distribute abilities? Also, as I said, I do like having the option to tackle enemies above my level on harder difficulties for more challenge.

Bull isn't a problem, because there's no requirement that a leader be high level.

No, it's not a requirement, it's a side effect. This is a guy who's fought and killed dozens if not hundreds of Vints, Tal-Vashoth, and god knows what else over all these years and yet somehow, he's at a fraction of his full strength when he meets you. It doesn't make sense. But it's okay because not everything needs to be perfectly integrated with the story for it to be enjoyable for most people.

 

It's nice to have the game part of an RPG align with the role-playing part but in any RPG there will always be concessions that have to be made to balance fun with realism. And I don't see enemies getting stronger as the player character gets stronger as being so absurd as to upset this balance.

[Sylvius the Mad]

It's nice to have the game part of an RPG align with the role-playing part but in any RPG there will always be concessions that have to be made to balance fun with realism. And I don't see enemies getting stronger as the player character gets stronger as being so absurd as to upset this balance.

I think tabletop RPGs typically do this much better than CRPGs do, and as such CRPGs should make more of an effort to emulate tabletop RPGs.

I also oppose scaling because I like overleveling.

[Lilacs]

What do you define as the starting area of the Hinterlands? I recall having to wander quite a bit from the first camp before I start encountering anything above level 4. 

 

But, anyway, let's say we make it so that there is a mix of monsters with different levels in each zone. How large would the level range be and do you also propose that we make all the zones have the same level range?

The Hinterlands is the starting area where you encounter a mix of monsters of varying levels. 

 

What you mentioned here: not encountering many enemies or monsters is one of  the problems I have with Dragon Age: Inquisition.  I want the world to be  populated with people and towns and thus more enemies and monsters.

 

But fort the sake of this post, I will contend to say that you didn't encounter many enemies because the Developers didn't want to overwhelm players. (I'm not agreeing with this sentiment here; I want to be clear here).

 

How large can the leveling range be? Well, it could be from: level 1-15, for the Hinterlands and the next zone another 15 levels difference, etc.

[Lilacs]

 

"...It's nice to have the game part of an RPG align with the role-playing part but in any RPG there will always be concessions that have to be made to balance fun with realism. And I don't see enemies getting stronger as the player character gets stronger as being so absurd as to upset this balance."

 So then, let there be concession. Realism must be balanced with fantasy to provide some type of enjoyment. We play games to forget the world for a while.... So, I will add the following below:

 

We are having this discussion because Dragon Age: inquisition is a semi-opened world. The game allows one to travel any zone one desires as long as that zone has been opened via the War Table. Dragon Age: Inquisition semi-opened world provides freedom to the player.  The player is not being restricted to zones due to level. The player can go to higher level zones before said player is high enough to go to those zones. If the game was not a semi-opened world, a player couldn't proceed to higher level zones until that player reaches the appropriate level for those zones.

 

 

In MMO's, the world is open; a player can go to any of the zones in that game world at his or her own risk, but some zones have contingency: the player must be the required level to sojourn to those zones.  I play with guild mates or a friend in the MMO's I play.  Sometime I will have my guild mates take my lowbie to areas that require a higher level requirement. I do that at times to just open zones for my lowbie; other times to just have fun with a higher level guild mate or friend by visiting those off-limits zones to my lowbie because requirement for those zone are not yet met.  

 

 

What I am alluding to here is that level scaling is inappropriate for Dragon Age: Inquisition, because the game is providing freedom to players who want to role-play their characters. Hence, asking for Dragon Age: Inquisition to have level-scaling some elements of role-play will be removed from the game. It is why I am agreeing with Sylvius in the idea that BioWare needs to decrease leveling, or slowing leveling, so that our characters do not out-leveled the zones too quickly. This way, players who are asking for level-scaling can be contended—so, equity for all players.

 

Nonetheless, if a player chose to take the critical path, then it is that player"s choice. Again, concession must be made so that all players can receive some type of equity.

[AlexMBrennan]

Where were the high level bandits early in the game?

The enemies don't wait around twiddling their thumbs when you go off on a side quest to plant flowers.

If you wait years before you confront an enemy, then that enemy will have grown stronger. The bandits will have gained experience robbing merchants for years, they will have stolen better equipment or acquired it with the money they stole. The rookie bandits you might have encountered have become elite bandits because you took too long planting flowers. 

 

The same applies here - Cory is... doing something somewhere, and the longer you wait before you confront him he will have more time to gather more powerful darkspawn under his command, or pull more and more powerful demons into our world, or a number of things. If you don't mind development costs, you could go even further and e,g, make Here Lies the Abyss impossible to complete if you have taken too long (by the time you have reached level 15 the ritual will be finished)

 

 

 

If I fight elite guards when I'm weak, they should be stronger than me. If I gain power, that fight should get easier.

That is a red herring - you can still have tougher enemies simply when you generally have enemies scaled to the player. The actual question, if you would care to address it, is whether it is better to sacrifice a bit of role-playing integrity and have balanced encounters, or if you would rather make most fights a pro forma slaughter of enemies that couldn't possibly hurt you.

If you give me the option of doing none, some or all of the optional areas then they will either be hugely frustrating for players who don't do "optional sidequests" (thus making the sidequests non-optional) or mind-numbingly boring if you have done all of them. 

 

Simply put, the only realistic alternative to level scaling you hate so much is going back to completely linear games. 

[AlanC9]

I think tabletop RPGs typically do this much better than CRPGs do, and as such CRPGs should make more of an effort to emulate tabletop RPGs.
I also oppose scaling because I like overleveling.

I'm not sure that's very applicable to this topic. In my tabletop experience we generally didn't have enough choice about where things would be happening next for levelling in this sense to come up. Nonlinearity has always struck me as a hallmark of CRPGs rather than PnP.

[DomeWing333]

The Hinterlands is the starting area where you encounter a mix of monsters of varying levels. 

If you're counting the whole zone, then the Storm Coast's level range is as varied as the Hinterlands, with enemies levels ranging from 4 to 12. The Emerald Graves also had a pretty wide level range.

How large can the leveling range be? Well, it could be from: level 1-15, for the Hinterlands and the next zone another 15 levels difference, etc.

If the zones are so disparate in level range that one starts where another ends, that would more or less force players to explore each of the zones in a particular sequence, which doesn't seem to be what was intended. The devs seem to want the game to be able to accommodate both the player who exhausts the sidequests in one zone before moving to the next and the player who jumps around from zone to zone completing the most pressing or relevant quest. If anything, they seem to favor the latter type of player, seeing as how the former type of player would find his game to be mind-numbingly easy after just the first zone. Your approach sounds like it takes the opposite extreme and punishes the critical pathers. The only way I really see to accommodate both player types is to either do level scaling or do what you suggest but make all the zones have around the same level range.

What I am alluding to here is that level scaling is inappropriate for Dragon Age: Inquisition, because the game is providing freedom to players who want to role-play their characters. Hence, asking for Dragon Age: Inquisition to have level-scaling some elements of role-play will be removed from the game. It is why I am agreeing with Sylvius in the idea that BioWare needs to decrease leveling, or slowing leveling, so that our characters do not out-leveled the zones too quickly. This way, players who are asking for level-scaling can be contended—so, equity for all players.

I guess I don't quite understand exactly how the type of scaling I'm referring to would restrict the type of role-playing freedom you're talking about. I would only remove the upper range for enemy levels. Areas that are "too high level" for you would still exist because the lower range would still be there. For instance, Hinterlands would be level 1+, Storm Coat would be level 4+, Crestwood would be 10+, Emprise Du Lion would be 16+, etc.

 

For a critical path player, there would be essentially no change in how they play their game regardless of what difficulty they're on. Including a maximum level scaling would simply make it so that players who want to do everything in one zone before moving onto the next could still experience the next zone with some level of challenge.

[Lilacs]

@ DomeWing333

 

I enjoy how it is right now in Dragon Age: Inquisition.  For my reasons see my other posts. And I do agree with Sylvius' view on this.  I play RPGs to role-play. And Dragon Age: Inquisition is providing me with this. I will soon give my review of Dragon Age: Inquisition, where I will state my likes and dislikes.

 

There are many things I enjoy in Inquisition and the level design in the zones is one of them. I am against level scaling. 

 

P.S. I'm looking forward to having more people and towns in Dragon Age: Inquisition.  Level-scaling is more for End Game in an MMO. It is unsuitable for a single-player game. For once a player reaches the max level in an MMO, the game must provide other activities for  that player. Those players can revisit dungeons in low levels areas and those dungeons will be scaled to their characters.    Dragon Age: Inquisition is a single-player game and thus level-scaling should not be an option. But this is my opinion of course. =)

Modifié par Lilacs, 31 mars 2015 - 04:15 .

[Gel214th]

Uhh...if there are gamers that like to go through an entire zone that they have never seen before where they steamroll all the enemies then that's great.

And if there are gamers that would like a challenge when they visit a zone for the first time, that should be cool as well.

How much money would it have taken to put an option that allows players to scale enemies to their own level ? 

 

Games that do not have scaling to levels do not allow players to visit zones in whatever order they choose. There will always be a storyline or item quest that needs to be completed before the harder zones become available. And you will be led through the previous zones one by one. Look at any MMORPG to see how this works. The newer MMORPGs that DAI tries to emulate have addressed this in various ways, one is by scaling the player to the level of the zone, as with Guild Wars 2. But DA:I took an MMO mechanic and dropped it into the game without understanding how this affects gameplay. 

 

I have to add, that this would not have been an issue if the game was open to modding, since by now more than one mod would have been released to address this issue, at no cost to the developer. 

[Sylvius the Mad]

I'm not sure that's very applicable to this topic. In my tabletop experience we generally didn't have enough choice about where things would be happening next for levelling in this sense to come up. Nonlinearity has always struck me as a hallmark of CRPGs rather than PnP.

That's not my experience at all.  The world was always populated by potential enemies and allies of a wide range of levels.  if you did something stupid, next thing you knew Juiblex was engulfing you with a slimy pseudopod.

 

It was easy to find yourself the thrall of some vampire lord or conscripted into an army sent on a suicide mission.  The world was a dangerous place.

 

I played a great many tabletop AD&D characters.  Only three of them ever saw level 5.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Games that do not have scaling to levels do not allow players to visit zones in whatever order they choose.

They should.

 

They used to.

 

In Ultima IV, we could go wandering into a dungeon for which we weren't nearly ready if we happened to find our way in.  And then we'd get trapped in a room full of Headless and wonder how those enemies could ever be defeated.

 

And then we'd come back later and walk right over them, eager to face the dragons on the level below.

[Dio Demon]

They should.

 

They used to.

 

In Ultima IV, we could go wandering into a dungeon for which we weren't nearly ready if we happened to find our way in.  And then we'd get trapped in a room full of Headless and wonder how those enemies could ever be defeated.

 

And then we'd come back later and walk right over them, eager to face the dragons on the level below.

It reminded me when I went in the Hall of the Giants in Dark Souls without a lantern and dangerously underprepared. I still don't know how to this day I managed to get out. But it was a blast trying to figure it out.

 

Level scaling - You can fight dragons, powerful demons, legendary warriors and  go toe to toe with them. But a small group of generic bandits can still slaughter you.

 

Or in Oblivion's case. Spend hours trying to kill one goblin because their health is 6 000 000 from level scaling.